MRH: And then they had babies, and they had babies (there are indescribable hand motions to this part) and they had babies and then all the to now there are seven billion people and then everybody stopped growing?

Dad: Well, no. Nobody’s stopped growing. I mean, Mama and I aren’t getting any taller now, but we’re still getting older. And you are still growing. And one day you’ll grow up and get married, and maybe you’ll have children — or maybe not, but a lot of people who are your age now will grow up and do that.

MRH: And they’ll have babies!

Dad: Right! God keeps making new people! Isn’t that amazing?

MRH: Well, mostly it’s the girls who make them.

Dad: Um… well…

MRH: I wonder why He did that.

Dad: You’ll have to ask him, you know when we’re with him all the time, like at the Great Feast.

MrH was helping me outside trimming trees for a few minutes, then went back inside. By himself, he started gathering “tools” together to come help me, including his stool from the bathroom. After some rummaging around, he said out of nowhere to Mama, “If only I had an ax.”

He re-emerged outside with his stool and a plastic beach toy rake, and when the stool proved to be too short to reach the branches he insisted I hold him up. He was both surprised and disappointed that the rake was not sharp enough to cut the tree, and profoundly sad that I deemed a pole saw not kid-friendly enough for a four year old.

Today, Micah woke up and announced he was done with his pacifier. He asked Mama to throw it away, but we insisted that if he was serious then he should do it. He marched into the kitchen and hurled his paci into the garbage can.

He has tried before and regretted it, but I think this time is for real.